Prayer

Some of you are reading this at a difficult economic time. Your business has shrunk. Your sales are down. Your customers are cutting back. Your salary has been reduced. Your position has been terminated. Many jobs in your company are gone, and the rumors are flying that more downsizing is coming. For some, the tough times have hit hard. For others, the tough times have hit home. Listen to the words of Jesus.

Prayer is a personal conversation with our Father. It should not be filled with clever Christian clichés or worn-out prayer phrases. It is fresh, real, and uninhibited—like any meaningful conversation in our lives. Using the Lord’s Prayer to learn how we are to pray, we see the principles of revering the person of God not only in quiet prayer time but also in the car on a backed-up road when we are in a hurry and in the interactions with our children at the end of the day when we are tired. We have considered our need to submit to the Father’s will. Now, we will focus on dependence.

When Jesus taught us how to talk to the Father in what we call the Lord’s Prayer, he instructed us to pray, “your kingdom come.” Why did Jesus tell us to include this in our prayers? 1 Corinthians 15 helps us answer that question.

Some people approach prayer with a list of demands. “God, I want you to do this. And when you get that done, here’s another thing. And sorry for the reminder, but you forgot to do the thing I asked for two days ago. I needed it ... yesterday. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” Some even teach that praying with real faith is telling God what you want, when you want it, and that you will not take “no” for an answer. So…is praying, “Your will be done,” a cop-out? Let’s learn from Jesus.

Talking to God all night. That’s what Jesus did the night before he chose his disciples. The selections were too important. The Son desired clarity from the Father. Luke says it this way:

Like many of you, I have a dictionary app on my phone where I can get the “Word of the Day.” I love checking out those words and dropping them, when appropriate, into conversation. We had a guy at our church years ago who always used big words. One person told me, “I love it when he teaches. I don’t understand half of what he says, but I love it when he teaches.” A lot of words strung together with some lofty ones peppered in can certainly be impressive to some people but not so much to God.

Welcome to a 30-day devotional series on prayer. Let’s spend September learning how to talk with God and better our communication with God. I encourage you to use this devo with your children and pray together as a family.

In the preceding verses, Peter told his readers to humble themselves under the “mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” Believers can cast all their anxieties on the Lord because God is always faithful, and those who follow him can entrust themselves to his care. God is in control, but that does not nullify human responsibility. We are reminded of this in today’s passage.

What does success look like? What does God’s success look like? There are often two different answers to those questions. Our success doesn’t always look like God’s success. But his “win” is the only success that matters.